By Deanna Sipe
Before becoming a film studies student I’ve always enjoyed watching videos about film from a variety of YouTubers who discuss many different types of films/shows. From my years of watching YouTube videos, I’ve compiled a list of Channels I like to watch and today I’m going to share them with you. In this post, I will discuss such Youtubers, what content they cover, and why you should watch them.
New Rockstars
The very first YouTuber I started watching was a channel called New Rockstars. The New Rockstars channel was created in 2011 by Benny Luo and was formally known as New Media Rockstars (NMR). In 2013 the channel was bought out by a man named Danny Zappin. The main content during the duration of being run by Luo and Zappin was more of an online magazine-type format that covered recent news and events, but while under the control of Zappin the media expanded to covering film, TV, and books. At the time the channel interviewed all types of media creators such as George Takei (Star Trek), Rob Dyrek (Ridiculousness), and Wassabi Productions (YouTube).
In 2014 however, the channel was bought out by a man named Filup Molina and was completely rebranded into the name it has today. The content completely switched up to breakdown, theory, and video podcasts. While Molina was now the owner of the channel Erik Voss, a comedian and writer, has been one of the main hosts seen on the channel for most of the time it has been around. There of course are other hosts such as Tommy Bechtold and Jessica Clemmons, Jessica being one of the other most seen hosts as of recently.
The content nowadays tends to be more about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Star Wars, DC Universe, and multiple miscellaneous popular topics (Rick and Morty, Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Elf, House of the Dragon, etc.). These videos as mentioned before including breakdowns, easter eggs, and theories of unknown answers to questions pertaining to the topic. Along with the videos, there is a podcast called “Wookieeleaks” hosted by Erik Voss, Tommy Bechtold, and Hector Navarro [Screenshot of the 3]. The podcast covers live reactions and breakdowns of the show “The Mandalorian”.
Deep Dive
From the New Rockstars Channel was born the Deep Dive Channel. The Deep Dive is yet another channel hosted by Erik Voss and its main focal point is to analyze film in a longer format with videos being about 30 minutes to almost an hour and a half. Within these videos, Voss digs deep to break down multiple types of films and shows whether it be live or pre-recorded. As of right now, Voss has analyzed mainly cult classics a few being “The Thing”, “Jaws”, and “The Goonies”.
The Deep Dive channel is more organized with certain playlists dedicated to analysis, certain directors (ex: Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg), and investigations into specific topics (ex: Film trailer deceptions vs actual movie scenes and Movies vs AI).
I’ve been watching New Rockstars and The Deep Dive for years now and I recommend watching New Rockstars if you enjoy watching and keeping up with Marvel and Star Wars because that is about 50% of the content on the channel, however, I believe the Deep Dive channel is more for everyone because it has more variety to the films being analyzed.
ScreenCrush
ScreenCrush although very similar to New Rockstars is also very different. ScreenCrush I believe is part of a bigger media group called Townsquare Media and has been around since 2012. This channel has always been hosted by Ryan Arey who writes, produces, and edits all the videos for the channel. Unlike New Rockstars, however, Arey has an adorably funny costar called Doug the Dog who helps aid in making the content funny.
As mentioned before, ScreenCrush does produce similar content as New Rockstars such as both mainly focusing on Marvel and Star Wars but ScreenCrush also throws in different types of videos. While ScreenCrush does do breakdown and easter egg videos there are also other types of videos Arey produces such as crucial scenes in understanding films, and timelines.
Two of the interesting video types Arey does are Scene Fights and “Villains That Were Right”. In the Scene Fights videos, Arey takes scenes from similar movies to help explain why in his opinion one movie is better than the other, for example, Arey has taken the “Captain Marvel” movie and compared it to the “Captain America: First Avenger” movie. In the “Villian That Were Right”, Arey once again takes mainly Marvel movie villains and goes into deep philosophical reasoning as to why the villain was right.
Once again while ScreenCrush and New Rockstars are very similar channels I like watching both because when one of them misses an easter egg in a movie the other one covers it. I also enjoy hearing more about my favorite movies and seeing the differences in content created by both channels gives me all the content I could ever want on those movies.
CZsWorld
The last channel I’m going to mention today is called CZsWorld. This channel was formed by the host Zac Morris in 2005 but no videos were posted until 2008. At first, the channel started as a passion project of Morris where he would create his cinematic short pieces, but it would grow into much more as the years went by. From Morris’ creations, he developed this very fond love of all things horror and slowly started forming the content for his channel into being about horror.
In 2017 Morris was still producing short films but also began producing video podcasts called “True Fear” where he’d tell creepy stories that happen or stuff on creepypasta. 2016 was a bit of a turnaround for Morris because he started finding his niche topic he’s been working with since then. Morris’ first video pertaining to pop culture horror, his first video being a “Things You Missed” on the trailer for Stephen King’s “It”. Ever since 2016, Morris has continued posting on horror pop culture with “Things You Missed”, timeline, history of characters, and sometimes some random videos that have nothing to do with horror such as “The History of Grimace”.
CZsWorld is my top YouTube channel to watch on film and I highly recommend giving him a watch if you’re interested in all things horror. Morris has a way of giving you all this information in sometimes a short amount of time but also making it funny. He’s also covered some of my favorite horror films that I've never seen such in-depth videos about such as “Insidious” and “Scream."
I know maybe Marvel, Star Wars and horror films aren’t everyone’s favorite but I do think there are videos for everyone between the four channels mentioned above, so from this list of YouTube channels, I hope you can either find a new favorite or just a new channel to watch!
Works Cited
Arey , Ryan. “Deadpool & Wolverine Trailer Breakdown! - Dr. Doom Cameo Explained!” YouTube, February 12, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEcrCg_wfcc&t=339s.
Morris , Zac. “Biography.” CZsWorld. Accessed March 14, 2024. http://www.czsworld.com/about-me.html.
Morris, Zac. “CZsWorld.” YouTube. Accessed March 14, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/@CZsWorld.
Morris, Zac. “The Nun: History of Sister Irene Palmer | Horror History.” YouTube, February 3, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meF9KUtnSh8.
“New Rockstars Homepage.” YouTube. Accessed March 14, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/@NewRockstars/featured .
“New Rockstars.” Wikipedia, February 26, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rockstars#:~:text=In%202014%2C%20Filup%20Molina%20took,became%20its%20primary%20publication%20platform.
“ScreenCrush Homepage.” YouTube. Accessed March 14, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/@ScreenCrush.
“The Deep Dive Homepage.” YouTube. Accessed March 14, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/@DeepDiveNR.
“Townsquare Media.” Wikipedia, March 6, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townsquare_Media#Web_publications_and_services.
Voss, Erik, Hector Navarro, and Tommy Bechtold. “Mandalorian 3x06 Reaction and after Show: Are the Separatists Right about Governing the Galaxy?” YouTube, April 5, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBe8GhhUEtc&list=PL4xEo4XxrSJa9wrE6lxcGIiETP_GjnjIt&index=3.
Wikitubia, Contributors to. “New Rockstars.” Wikitubia. Accessed March 14, 2024. https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/New_Rockstars#:~:text=Filup%20Molina%3A%20Molina%20is%20a,Rockstars%20and%20Epic%20Hero%20Fitness.
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